NOT resolutions! I think calling anything a New Year’s resolution is asking for failure. I just wanted to make a fun and colorful little reminder for myself about how I want to live a happier life. I made it into a perfect size for my iPhone lock screen so I can see it and be reminded of these principles all the time (the big white space at the top allows me to still see the time easily), and I thought I’d share it for anyone else who could use a daily reminder! I also made a 4×6″ one for you if you just want to print it out and keep it at your desk or on your fridge. Please feel free to download for personal use (click on the images to get the full-size versions).

I challenged myself to read 30 books last year, and I exceeded that goal by quite a few! I only read 28 books in 2012, so I thought 30 was a reasonable goal. I read 38, but two were reference books I read in planning our Disney vacation. I still read them, but I feel like that’s not quite the same as reading something with a plot.

Books I read in 2013:
1. The end of A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin
2. How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
3. My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me by Hilary Winston
4. Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV by Warren Littlefield
5. The Receptionist: An Education at THE NEW YORKER by Janet Groth
6. My Year with Eleanor by Noelle Hancock
7-9. Remember Me 1, 2 & 3 by Christopher Pike (rereads from the teen years)
10. Dog Sense by John Bradshaw (I only read half of this book)
11. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson
12. A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
13. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
14. The Unofficial Guide: Walt Disney World 2013 by Bob Sehlinger (in prep for our vacation)
15. The Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World by Susan Veness (ditto)
16. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
17. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
18. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
19. Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close
20. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
21. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
22. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
23-25. The Hunger Games, Catching Fire & Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (rereads in anticipation of Catching Fire the movie)
26. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
27. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
28. Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
29. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
30-32. Divergent, Insurgent & Allegiant by Veronica Roth
33. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
34. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
35. The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey
36. The Smart One by Jennifer Close
37. The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp
38. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
39. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I know the list says 39, but remember I only read the ending of A Storm of Swords (started it in 2012) and half of Dog Sense (it just wasn’t that interesting to read the whole thing. I skipped around a lot).

Standouts:

Life After Life
Might be in my top 5 books I’ve ever read. The plot was so interesting and the story was moving. I really love reading this and I was sad to see it go back to the library when I was finished.

The Interestings
Another books I was sad to return to the library. I loved getting to know the characters as the story followed them throughout their lives from the teen years to the senior years. It was just about their friendships and how they lived, not much to tell about the plot, but the journey was incredible and personal and lovely.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Another lovely story. I’m just terrible at writing about books I loved. I don’t know how to express why I enjoyed a particular story. But this was a great read.

Disappointments:

The Night Circus
I think this one was the victim of too much hype. I was expecting something epic. I think I would have enjoyed it much more if I had gone in without having heard anything about it first. But even if I hadn’t, the book jacket misleads you in that respect as well. It was a perfectly good book, I just expected so much more.

The Divergent Series
This one suffered from a strong first book in the trilogy as the next two got progressively weaker. It had distinct YA problems — it would have been much stronger and more interesting without the love story trope that so many YA novels feel the need to include. I wanted to throw the second book across the room at several points when it got to the relationship parts of the plot.

The Receptionist: An Education at THE NEW YORKERAnother one with a lot of hype, and this one I can’t blame on expectations, I just flat out didn’t like it. I felt the main character (who was the author) was just terrible. Didn’t enjoy reading about her life at all.

Books I’m looking forward to reading in 2014:The Book ThiefGoldfinchOrange is the New BlackReconstructing Amelia

I haven’t been very interested in writing here lately. I don’t know what that’s about. I’ve been making a conscious effort to spend more time doing things in real life and less time on the internet, including sharing real life activities via social media, so that probably has something to do with it. I have to say, it’s been nice to kind of check out from social media. Now when I use it, I try for it to be light-hearted, fun or funny, or sharing something I really think is worth sharing, with people I actually want to be in touch with. It’s so much better now!

I think it also has to do with our upcoming vacation, and I just have Disney on the brain! But I don’t want to write endless Disney posts here. No one is interested in that! So I haven’t been updating.

But I’m six months into my new 101 list, so I thought this would be a good time for a progress report on that. I’ve crossed off 18 things already (!) and I have 16 more things “in progress.”

Completed items:

Get a DSLR – this was my 30th birthday gift from my husband. Used, because that’s what our budget could afford, but it’s still way better than just an iphone camera.

Complete seven goals in a week, which included:

Tour Shofuso House

Visit Bartram’s Gardens

Organize books by genre

Participate in Delaware Fun-A-Day

Pay for the person behind me

Start an herb garden

Complete a 1,000 piece puzzle

Play Stratego with my husband (he won, his first time ever playing!)

Discover a new brunch place in the city – we went to Industry Bar in June, and it was so delicious

Order the chef’s tasting menu – did this when we went out for sushi for my birthday. I think ordering the chef’s menu is a great way to try new kinds of sushi!

Finish the living room — items that needed to be done for this to be considered complete were, patching and sanding, painting of trim, ceiling and walls, move in new furniture, hanging photos and art on the walls, and purchasing and installing window blinds. It’s technically not 100% complete (I have a couple of more pieces of art I want to hang), but I think if a stranger walked into the room they wouldn’t know it, so that counts in my mind.

Refurb and hang my type tray – I originally planned to use it for jewelry but then decided it was more suited to nail polish. I love having all my colors easy to see and find!

Try out DVDs organized by genre – I think we like it! They’ve been by genre (instead of alphabetical) for a few months now, and it works well. I like that if I feel like a comedy, it’s much easier to find the comedies all grouped together now.

Make friendship bracelets with my little cousin – this was really fun, and I wore my bracelet a lot this summer. And she’s not so little anymore!

Foster again – this happened accidentally, which I think was the only way it was going to happen. H found two kittens in his office parking lot, so we took them in until we could find a rescue that would find them proper homes. It was nice having kittens around again. If our cats were more amenable to it, I would foster all the time.

Put money in someone’s expired parking meter

Find and attend a local Native American festival – I used to go to one with my family as a kid and I always really enjoyed it, which is how it got on the list this year. I found the Roasting Ears of Corn Festival at the Museum of Indian Culture near Allentown, PA. We had a great time and plan to go again next year.

That’s all for now! I hope to be more active here now that I’ve gotten the ball rolling. See ya real soon! (Disney creeps in yet again!)

Well hello there! I’m dusting off the old blog to bring you a tutorial today. It’s only been about four months!

We are planning a Disney vacation for November, and as is typical of me, I’ve been browsing the internet in excess researching our plans. In my explorations, I found quite a few ideas for fun tees to wear on our vacation. I pretty much never like graphic tees as they are sold, so rather than drop money on shirts I didn’t even fully like, I decided to save some money and DIY them in a way that I wanted. For example, the Pocahontas shirt I found on redbubble.com, but it had the words, “Just Around the Riverbed” printed on it as well. I didn’t want the words, so I “fixed” it. The Tangled tee I was able to find almost like that, purple with the sun image, but I wanted to add Pascal as a cute extra detail.

I made the designs pretty much all the same way. I googled for images I liked and then traced them in Adobe Illustrator. I’ll go step by step how I did the most complicated one, the sugar skull Mickey head tee.

1. In Adobe Illustrator, I traced a Mickey head outline. I didn’t like how the ‘three circles’ head looked with the sugar skull art, so I traced this classic Mickey head instead:

Image via wikiHow

2. Then I simply filled it in using different stock illustrations found and purchased on istockphoto.com. I’m not great at illustrating myself, but once I have the vector art, I can manipulate it to what I want. There was a LOT of manipulation here, it took hours. But I’m really pleased with how it turned out! With a simpler design, like most of my other ones, once I traced the outline I wanted, I just filled it in with a solid color.

3. Print it out onto iron-on transfer paper for dark fabrics. I kept some black around the outside of it because I was planning to iron onto a black tee shirt. For the Tangled tee I outlined them in purple, again to match the tee. Pocahontas, yellow outline, and so on. The transfer paper I bought instructs you to print out your image and then trim it out. Any white that is left on the image will show up white on your shirt. So that’s why I did the tee color-matching outlines on my images, so if I mis-trimmed, I wouldn’t have little white edges showing.

You can see the outlines a little, up close, but from a normal distance it just blends right into the shirts.

I have to recommend using the transfer paper for dark fabrics even on light fabrics. I think that the method is easier, and the transfer turns out better. Here is one I did using the transfer paper for light fabrics. You can see it’s much more transparent. I think that would be beneficial for the edges, but not for the color of your image. Clearly, I did not follow instructions on this gray tee, since it’s definitely “dark fabric” but I think even on a white tee the colors would look faded, not crisp and bright like they do on the dark fabric transfer paper. Also, the light fabric transfer feels different. Almost sticky. The dark fabric paper feels smooth. Still plastic-y, not like fabric, but it feels nicer, like how a screen printed image on a tee shirt you bought at a store might feel.

However, if you follow my advice and use the transfer paper for dark fabrics on a white tee shirt, be even more careful in your trimming! You will still see the white edges that are left. As you can see here, I was a little careless with my white tee because I didn’t think the edges would really show. I was wrong. I’ll still wear this shirt, and from a distance it’s not as noticeable, but I definitely wish I had taken the time to more carefully trim out my design.

4. Then I ironed it on! With the non-reverse dark transfer paper, you print the image on the paper, trim it out, peel off the backing, position it on your shirt, place the provided parchment paper on top, and iron on the hottest cotton setting with no steam for 90-120 seconds. If your iron doesn’t have a setting to turn off steam, like mine doesn’t, just empty it of water and iron on your board for a minute for so to get any leftover moisture out.

I purchased all of my tee shirts at Target for under $10 each, and I got the iron on transfer paper at Michael’s with a coupon. So for five tee shirts, including the iron-on designs, I think I spent around $50. Not bad!

I just love this animatronic hippo heart graphic. I got the idea for this from a shirt I saw on redbubble.com.

Isn’t Pascal the cutest? I’m going to love having him on my shoulder when I wear this shirt!

And that’s all! It was seriously so easy and the longest part was doing the designs. It could probably be done even faster by just hitting up google to find your image, and printing and trimming it very carefully. Best of luck if you decide to give it a try!!

We’re planning a trip to Walt Disney World for November, and I’m very excited about it. I love the parks — there is something about being there that is truly magical. The level of detail the Imagineers put into every little thing just blows my mind, and I think because I am a creative person, I love trying to find each and every one of those details. Plus things like, when you arrive to your hotel the cast members say, “Welcome home!”. I just love that. I could go one about what I love about WDW all day long.

As I’ve been doing my research for this trip, Disney has decided to include Merida, from “Brave” into their group of official Disney princesses. All of the princesses have recently gotten makeovers, so that the older and the newer princesses all look similar. Some, like Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora have been modernized. Others, like Rapunzel and Merida, have been turned from 3D renderings to the classic Disney 2D animation style.

A lot of people feel Disney shouldn’t be messing with the classic designs of the original princesses. A lot of others feel that they are being sexed up and are too ultra-feminine. They worry about the message this is sending our daughters. A commenter on one of the many articles about Merida said, “I cannot get over the lack of clothing on her shoulders. Why do they want our little girls to ‘look up’ to this more skanky look? I am totally boycotting all new princess merchandise.”

Another said, “This was a ‘Princess’ that I previously considered worthy of my [daughter’s] time as a role model. Now I have to explain why Disney felt it necessary for her to be pretty, thin & glittery in order to qualify as an official princess.”

I hardly think an off-the-shoulder gown qualifies as skanky, especially considering Ariel’s and Jasmine’s original outfits. Additionally, was Merida fat and ugly before? No, she was still thin, and while definitely younger looking, attractive. And just because Disney made her rendering fit in with the others (which, from a graphic design and marketing standpoint, makes perfect sense), does that change who her character is? The movie hasn’t been re-written. Her character traits are the same, and if we are teaching our daughters that because she wears a sparkly dress now she can’t be considered a tomboy, what is that teaching them? That what’s on the outside dictates who you are on the inside, that’s what. And I take huge issue with that.

I’ve never been a princess person. Before this whole Disney Princess makeover kerfluffle, I was even one of those people who might have tried to get her [future, possible] daughter to avoid the princesses at all costs. Princesses aren’t about empowerment! I want a strong, independent little girl! But then I started reading the many, many, many articles about Merida and the other princess makeovers and I started to change my mind.

Shouldn’t we take away the core values of these princesses, instead of judging them on their appearance and their status as princesses?

Let’s take a look at them. Even the earlier, less developed personality-wise princesses have positive traits that we can highlight for our kids.

Snow White: Probably the princess with the most focus on her looks, as the entire plot develops from her stepmother being so enraged and jealous that Snow White is “the fairest one of all” that she tries to have her murdered. That’s pretty serious! But does Snow White end up completely damaged after this incident, as most 14-year-old girls would be? Nope, she picks herself up, brushes herself off, and after another scary incident getting lost in the forest, she finds some dwarf friends and proceeds to help them clean up their house and cooks for them, and sings and dances and has a grand old time. She’s not the most developed princess, but she’s kind, gentle, patient, and has great internal strength. Surely those are traits anyone would be happy to find their child emulating.

Cinderella: A little sassier, and a little more developed than Snow White. She’s been put to work and is treated like servant by her stepmother and stepsisters (it seems if anyone should take issue with Disney, it’s step-families!), but does she throw a fit about it? Does she run away and refuse to work, even though she would be well justified in doing so? No, she does everything that is asked of her, and she manages to stay sweet, kind, and thoughtful. She triumphs over adversity.

Aurora: Probably the weakest of the princesses as far as character development. The worst that happens to her is she grows up away from her parents and not knowing her true identity. When she finally learns her identity, she falls under the curse and sleeps until Prince Philip rescues her. But hey, if you thought you were a completely different person than you are until you were 16, you’d probably be pretty messed up right? But Aurora takes it in stride and turns out just fine.

Ariel: Sure, she’s pretty silly, completely enamored with a world that’s not her own and falling in love at first sight with a person not even of her species, and giving up her family, friends and voice in order to be with him, but she’s adventurous, curious, has a thirst for learning, stays true to her opinions even when no one agrees with her, and in the end she gives up everything she wants in order to save her family from the evil Ursula.

Belle: She loves to read (that makes her one of the best princesses in my book, right off the bat), she longs for adventure, and she learns to look beyond the surface to see who the Beast truly is inside. She sacrifices her freedom in order to save her father — she has strong family values.

Jasmine: Independent, strong-willed, wants to marry for love, not a kingdom, and wants to learn about the outside world. She knows that being a princess isn’t all there is to life, and she wants to find out what else is out there. She is also the first princess of color. What a great message for the younger generation!

Pocahontas: Our next non-white princess, Pocahontas also wants more out of life than to be a princess. She wants to discover more of the world. She’s in tune with nature, and teaches John Smith that it’s just as valuable as gold and to look and learn before he acts. “Colors of the Wind” is an amazing and beautiful song that teaches some great values.

Mulan: Definitely one of the best princesses. Mulan does not want to change who she is in order to be found suitable to marry and then pretends to be a man in order to save her elderly father from having to go to war. She wants to be recognized for her brain and always speaks her mind. She ends up saving the Emperor and all of China from the Huns. Quite a feat for a young girl!

Tiana: Another of the best princesses, in my opinion. Our first black princess, Tiana is motivated and hard working. She works two jobs and saves all her money to achieve her dream of opening her own restaurant. When given a chance to get her restaurant the easy way, by betraying her new friend, she refuses. Tiana represents loyalty, tenacity, conscientiousness and drive.

Rapunzel: She dreams of the outside world, and prior to getting to see it she betters herself with reading and activities and learning. When she finally escapes her tower, she brings out the best in Flynn Rider. They both change each other for the better, and they both make huge sacrifices to save the other. Rapunzel is imaginative, optimistic, and selfless.

Merida: Adventurous and fearless, Merida longs to be in control of her own destiny. She is also the first princess to not end up with a prince. She loves being a tomboy, and while she makes several mistakes in her story, she learns good lessons from those mistakes.

I firmly believe that what these princesses look like, and what they are wearing on their official merchandise (can we all remember for a moment that Disney is a huge corporation, and while they have truly made some wonderful and inspirational movies, their primary goal is to make a profit) makes no difference to who their characters are. If we, as adults, choose to focus on their outer appearance, that’s what our children will focus on as well. If we choose to highlight all of their wonderful personality traits, that’s what our kids will take away from their stories. This is not to say that there aren’t problems with the princess mentality or with what is presented to our children for their intellectual consumption, or with women still being marginalized and discriminated against in popular culture today, but it’s all about perspective, and I’m glad to say that if I have a little girl someday, I will be proud to watch these movies with her and teach her the lessons that I want her to learn from them.

I can’t believe it, but it’s time to start another 101. Will I improve upon my success rate this time? I think I learned a lot about what I am and am not interested in actually doing from my last list, so I hope this one is more successful, and I’ve already started working on it since I started it April 1. Here are my new 101 in 1001 goals!

Start Date: April 1, 2013 End Date: December 28, 2015

DO

Get a DSLR

Complete seven goals in a week [0/7]

Keep a trip journal on our Disney vacation

Take a Facebook break

Celebrate five random “holidays” like National Sandwich Day [0/5]

Attempt to purge 365 items from our home in a year [113/365]

Complete a 1,000 piece puzzle

Write 101 list-themed blog posts [0/101]

Play Stratego with my husband

Go to church on Christmas Eve

Finalize and get my next tattoo inked

Give yoga another try

Discover 10 new music albums, again [0/10]

Get Bigby trained to always come when he hears a certain command, for emergencies

Get the kitties trained to always come when they hear a certain command, for emergencies

Put together the FEMA recommended 3-day emergency supply [0/37]

Start a journal to write down random memories that come to me

Get a record player

EAT

Make 10 recipes from any of my new cookbooks [1/10]
– Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream frosting from How to Cook Everything

Do something to at least improve how I feel when I walk into the hideous upstairs bathroom

Get all the windows in the house some kind of covering (in rooms we use) [0/9]

LEARN

Read The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman

Watch the 12 series Alan Sepinwall deems the most important of the new golden age of TV and then read his book on the subject [2/12]
– The Sopranos
-Oz
-The Wire
-Deadwood
-The Shield
–Lost
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer
-24
-Battlestar Galactica
-Friday Night Lights
–Mad Men
-Breaking Bad

Start training Bigby for the AKC Canine Good Citizen® program

Learn about 10 strong female role models that I know very little about [0/10]

Read ten books from my ‘Want to Read’ Goodreads list [0/10]

Ask five people to recommend a book, read them all [0/5]

Learn five constellations besides Orion [0/5]

Watch Citizen Kane

Fill out the family tree book I bought

Read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Read A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Learn about five U.S. Presidents that I know very little about [0/5]

Watch some of the TED conferences available on Netflix Instant

Read some chapters from my New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge